praise the Lord, I knew I'd get to do it at least once with a real man before I died.'
There was only one way a gent could respond to such a flattering lady. But when he rolled her on her back and spread her long legs with an elbow hooked under either of her knees, she sobbed, 'Oh, not too deep! Give a girl a chance to get used to all this! I've only been married to a mortal human long enough to sense I was missing something, and to be frank, the few times I've done this with someone else, I've been bitterly disappointed!'
Longarm had to move faster in her to keep from going soft as he growled, 'I thought I asked you not to spoil the magic. I don't want to share this moment with other men. But since you brought it up, I can't help feeling curious about this they you were jawing with about my physical endowments. I don't recall disclosing them to any of you Fort Sill ladies.'
She wrapped her long legs around his waist and purred, 'That's where you're wrong, you naughty tomcat. When Elvira Howard came in to tell us you'd broken up with that newspaper woman, a certain member of our little group who used to be somebody else in Denver volunteered how sweet you were when she told you she'd gotten the chance to marry a certain cavalry john.'
Longarm thought back and silently nodded as that meshed with what had once been a henna-rinsed barmaid who'd doubtless changed some in the past few summers. Since this one dismissed a lieutenant as a john, it was safe to assume her man was at least a captain.
That was all he needed, after being sent all this way to avoid a showdown with a coal miner over a wife he'd never trifled with. He told himself this was as far as he wanted to go with any fool captain's wife, but then they were coming and, try as one might, it was tough to keep from saying stupid things and making empty promises while you pounded the rolicking rump of the most beautiful gal in the universe against the rosy clouds of heaven with a host of angels singing dirty to the both of you. He realized he'd been humming in time with their humping when she began to croon in his ear, to the same frisky tune:
Oh, some folk'l say he is a knave, Some folk say he can't behave, He screwed a virgin to her grave, With that old organ-grinder!
Then she pleaded for him to screw her to death because she was coming some more, and so he did his best until, as all good things must, it ended for now in a great gasping shudder of painful pleasure and they just floated down from the stars like thistledown, too satisfied to say anything until, still soaking in her, he asked her if she smoked.
She murmured, 'I dip snuff too. But I don't want you to strike a match, darling. I've been thinking about what you said about magic.'
He kissed her soft throat and gently protested, 'That's not fair. You tracked me down to commit premeditated fornication knowing all my secrets, and I don't know your name or even what you look like!'
She kissed him back and moved her hips languidly as she murmured, 'Just think of me as your fairy godmother, you good little boy. I'm not sure I'm ready to tell you who I really used to be. I'm afraid you may have just turned me into somebody else.'
He said he didn't follow her drift.
She hugged him tighter with her crossed legs and softly told him she wasn't certain what she meant either. Then, before he could ask or she could explain further, some other gal was screaming fit to bust and all hell seemed to be busting loose out in the hall!
Longarm rolled from between her bare legs to land on his bare feet between the bedstead and one window. As he peered out into a mess of swirling gloom his mysterious visitor hissed, 'Come back here and don't get into it! It sounds as if they're fighting over some other army wife, and it's not as if anyone will be looking for this one, darling!'
But Longarm was already hauling on his pants as he told her, 'I wouldn't bet any eating money on that. I'm a peace officer, and at least a dozen others are disturbing the peace considerably right outside that hardwood door!'
As if to prove his point, something at least as large and solid as a human head thunked against the far side of the door, followed by an anguished moan of, 'Take it easy, for Gawd's sake! You know I can't hit back, you crazy old goat! And I haven't done a thing a lot of your other junior officers haven't done, damn it!'
Then the brawl rolled down the hall in a series of loud thuds as Longarm shucked into his shirt, pinned his badge to the front of it, and strapped on his six-gun, muttering, 'Bolt the door after me and don't open up to another soul, hear?'
She started to protest as, somewhere in the night, a voice rang out, 'Corporal of the Guard! Post Number Nine and all is not well by a long shot!'
Knowing the military police were surely on the way, the half-dressed federal deputy stepped out in the hall to spy other guests gaping at nothing much. The action had apparently spilled down the stairs while he was getting up.
He moved down the stairs in his bare feet, his.44-40 undrawn on his left hip as he eased in on all those loud voices ahead. A voice of authority had just assured one and all that it was in full charge. But a sardonic Irish brogue replied, 'Faith, and begging the major's pardon, me darling, general orders say that after Guard Mount and until I've been relieved as Corporal of the Guard, I'm to be after taking orders from the Sergeant of the Guard, the Officer of the Day, and nobody else, with the possible exception of the Regimental C.O. I forgot to ask about that. But sure and since you can't be any of the officers just described, I'll be placing you under arrest, sir. By this time Longarm had moved down far enough to take in the sad scene. A muscular stark-naked man reclined on his rump in a far corner, covered with bruises and bleeding from the nose and mouth as a half-dressed fellow officer tried to help him with a damp kerchief. The obvious Corporal of the Guard and two other enlisted members of his interior guard had a little old gray-haired and fully dressed major against the lobby desk. He seemed twice as mad and three times as confused as a gamecock caught by one leg in a rat trap. When the Irish noncom spotted Longarm and his badge, he nodded and told him, 'The O.D. told us you'd checked in here and ordered us to keep an eye on you. So who might you have slept with after that dance, and what's the story about you and that darling Quirt McQueen?'
Longarm laughed lightly and replied, 'I can promise you that shotgun messenger never walked this child home from any dance. I take it these other gentlemen were fighting over somebody else just now?'
The corporal shrugged and said, 'I ordered one of me boyos to sneak her out the back and escort her home for now. It will be up to the colonel to decide whether she and the major here still have a home on this post.'
The elderly field-grade officer protested, 'See here! I was the one who was wronged by that smooth-talking Casanova I had every right to shoot down like a dog!' Whirling on the younger man still bleeding in the corner, the outraged major half sobbed, 'You know you deserve to die, don't you, Chalmers! My Meg and me had been married
